The sapphire and spinel type materials have been roughly shaped and holes have been placed in them by etching operations. One illustration of such an operation is in U.S. Pat. No. 4,008,111. However, heretofore in the art in etching, the etchant proceeds to erode the material in more than one dimension so that close control of the desired shape is not readily achievable. In ordinary machining types of operations, the tools available are not generally as hard as the materials being shaped and further the material is quite brittle resulting in jagged edges and rapid tool wear.